Wyoming miles

Gillette at sunset

Wyoming too easily turns into a slog between cities. Laramie and Cheyenne sit just off the Colorado border, but north of them, distance between cities widens. Between lies a lot of rock and hills trying to hold onto what little greenery they possess.  

For so young a state, Wyoming’s crust lies littered with ghost towns, with a history of failures from homesteaders who thought to conquer the dry, treeless country. Homesteaders thought they could change this land based on their abilities to transform lands east of here. 

But Wyoming pushed back, as is its nature. Too many creek beds lie dry. Even reservoirs along the North Platte show signs of dry seasons as vegetation covers bays and inlets, not water.

There’s hope as the North Platte and the Black Hills arise along the South Dakota border. The arid portions of Wyoming and western Nebraska run into hills of dense pine forests

I had no clue how deeply the Black Hills ran into Wyoming, but the sacred Lakota ground does not stop with state boundaries. 

Leaving the interstate exposes the uninitiated to the energy-producing reality of Wyoming, where trucks rumble down dusty roads and mines, wells and refineries lie among the natural features. They don't intrude with the scenery, but the air loses its stockyard smell for a light odor of soot and petroleum.

Thirty miles onto a dusty road with minimal services, I came upon Bill. The town drew its name from a number of Bills who lived in the area. Its heyday passed 90 years early, until all the Bills died off. No need for a town of Bill when no one with the name remains. 

The Bill Store and the USPS Bill office were both for sale and had been vacant for some time. Out here, there was no pop-up Halloween store ready to set up shop for autumn. 

But Bill still had a hotel, a national chain doing solid business. Penny’s Dinner was connected to the hotel and still stayed open 24 hours. I had a burger and an iced tea, read a few chapters from Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson while numerous Sturgis-bound parties rocketed past. 

The Bill Store called, they're running out of me

The road stayed rural with a few national forest turnoffs but mostly coal and gas trucks entering the road. After 100-some miles, I hit the edge of Gillette, the biggest outpost in northeastern Wyoming. Campbell County supplies 35 percent of the nation's coal. If viewed as a country, it would be the sixth-largest coal-producing nation in the world.

Across the town of 30,000, I passed through suburban stretches and a rugged business district, with resilient Chinese and Mexican on Gillette’s outskirts. Gillette lies in coal country, almost a country unto itself, as its low-sulfur coal spurs high production and spurred a thriving town. 

At Moorcroft, I left the interstate for 200 miles of mountains and plains. Expecting an easy route to Devils Tower, the meander through town and a lightly marked route north caught me offguard. A cat paused in the road and watched me pass as I headed toward Devils Tower. Somehow it never occurred to me that Devils Tower would lie on the edge of Wyoming's Black Hills, but the tower loomed above a series of other volcanic buttes and forested high country. 

White-tailed doe, Black Hills

Sunrise in the Belle Fourche Valley

I would leave Wyoming as the Black Hills ceded to the high prairie of southeast Montana. But I could not find home without Wyoming, not on this trip. 

The interstate skips from Montana to Wyoming with the barest mention of state borders. A Wyoming sign welcomes, but the immense bulk of the Bighorn Mountains provides the true Wyoming greeting. They rise abruptly to the west, their upper reaches still slightly snowy and far above the local tree line. 

With barely 1,000 residents, Ranchester comes first - not much of a town, but who can complain with those views? Sheridan qualifies as a metropolis in Wyoming, with almost 20,000 people. 

With the steep range rising above the small town, Sheridan felt more like a town from its neighboring state than one from Wyoming. I would not dare say that to the locals. 

 The Bighorns loom for a long visit. U.S. 14 crosses the range on route heavy with switchbacks and scenic views. The Bighorn River and its steep-walled canyon lie just 80 miles west.

Soon enough the interstate drifts away from the Bighorns. Depending on your direction, Interstate 25 starts or ends in Buffalo. The town’s namesakes were nowhere in sight. I gassed up and took a slow drive through the historic district but today it did not grab me. Buffalo might some other time, just not this one. 

Later in August, Buffalo hosts the Longmire festival, as it stands in for the fictional town of Durant, Wyoming in Craig Johnson's books and the well-crafted Netflix series. The town even poses as Durant during the festival, as Johnson and series crew appear. In the Netflix series, Durant is played by Las Vegas, New Mexico. 

The interstate only gives glimpses of Wyoming’s biggest cities. You have to divert to explore Cheyenne (I have many times), and the same goes for Casper. A military base hems in Cheyenne, and the business district of Casper lies close to a nearby mountain ridge, visible from a distance before the highway jogs southeast. 

Even on the weekend, the region around Casper feels resoundingly industrial, and that feel leaves a traveler to stick with the road. I swear I will visit at some point, since Casper lies five hours from the Springs. But Wyoming’s second-largest town does not lend itself to a casual visitor. 

Fortunately, other towns do. I barely touched Douglas when headed to Bill and Gillette. In need of a break from the road, Douglas provided a respite from relentless interstate. On Sunday afternoon, few people milled around the historic district.

At an empty town square stood Douglas’ claim to fame, a statue of the jackelope. The imaginary creature has been created here, but a local decided to place deer antlers upon jackrabbit. Despite the town selling the jackelope hard around the center of town, I was the only one to bite on this hot Sunday. More will come once Douglas hosts the Wyoming state fair, but this day the town saw light traffic. 

 Then I found myself along with the hills and spare grasses that coated then. Even as Summer 2022’s monsoons had warded off wildfires, these little patches of green were all this stretch of Wyoming could sustain.